Chicagoland: Post-race press conference

Chicagoland 100 Post-Race Transcript
August 29. 2009
AN INTERVIEW WITH
DANIEL HERRINGTON
JAMES DAVISON
ANDREW PRENDEVILLE
THE MODERATOR:
We'll get started with our post-race press conference. We're
joined by second place James Davison and...

Chicagoland 100 Post-Race Transcript
August 29. 2009

AN INTERVIEW WITH
DANIEL HERRINGTON
JAMES DAVISON
ANDREW PRENDEVILLE

THE MODERATOR:
We'll get started with our post-race press conference. We're
joined by second place James Davison and third place finisher Andrew
Prendeville. James, please talk about your run out there today.

JAMES DAVISON:N It was a really good race and just basically all day I was
just playing the role of a wing man, just trying to protect whoever the
leader was. At this track if you try and go for a run on someone around the
outside and don't have any help from behind, everyone sucks up on the leader
and you can get boxed out and go back to 5th place.

So I was aware of that and was just trying to set myself up for the last lap
to time a run. But you know, when my teammate got in front of me, I thought
-- I was satisfied to finish second and give him a win this year. Some
things haven't gone quite right for him. I didn't want to get too greedy,
either.

It was an exciting race, and I definitely played the role of a good
teammate.

THE MODERATOR:
Andrew, please tell us about your run out there today.

ANDREW PRENDEVILLE:
We had a good run. We came from the back. We had some
fuel pressure problems this whole morning. We had some issues in our
practice session and then we got to qualifying and we had some more fuel
pressure issues, so we started from the back.

But we had a really good car, and we just tried to slowly pick some people
off and work our way up. And at the end we definitely had to work hard to
fight with James (Davison) and Daniel (Herrington), but like James (Davison)
said, he was being a great teammate and made it very difficult for me. But
it was a good race, and I think we put on a good show and I'm happy to be on
the podium.

THE MODERATOR:
We're also joined by our race winner Daniel Herrington. It is
a list of firsts for Daniel here -- his first career Firestone Indy Lights win
and the first laps led this season for Herrington and Bryan Herta Autosport
. It marks the first-ever win for Bryan Herta Autosport, and this is
Daniel's first full season driving for Bryan Herta Autosport. Daniel, talk
about your run out there today and your win.

DANIEL HERRINGTON:
At the start it was quite eventful. You're in a huge pack
of 10 or 15 cars, and it seems like everyone has their own ideas about where
there's room to race. So I was happy just to survive the first 20 laps or
so.

Then we started realizing our car was working really well up on the high
side and we had a good race car and could drive to the front. So we slowly
picked people off, had some bumps and bruises along the way and then finally
on that last restart I got a big run on my teammate here and Wade
(Cunningham). I was able to make it three wide around the outside of Turns 3
and 4 and make it around them.

Then I had a ton of help from James (Davison) in the last 20 laps to bring
me home and get us our first win.

Q:
Daniel, how quickly did you know that you could run high on the outside,
and how harrowing was it when everybody else was coming by that way, too?

DANIEL HERRINGTON:
From Lap 1 I knew that we could do it. I had a lot of
confidence in the car from practice and knew that was where our car worked
really well. So I tried to get up there as soon as I could.

But it was definitely hairy. That was one of the tightest races I've ever
been in, so I was just fortunate to survive in some cases.

Q:
Daniel, it's always been said that that first race is the one you have to
crack because quite often these things go in spurts. Do you believe that and
do you subscribe to it?

DANIEL HERRINGTON:
Well, I hope it starts a spurt of winning for us. That's
been a tough season so far. We've had some rotten luck along the way and
kind of struggled with speed, struggled getting the car up to where it needs
to be. But these guys have worked their butts off all year now, and now
we're in a really strong position and had a car that I was comfortable with
in practice and finally got that first win.

Q:
What was the most difficult of the turns for you today, or were they all
equally difficult?

DANIEL HERRINGTON:
The turns aren't the difficult part -- it's other cars. The
turns are kind of easy by themselves, and once I got out front, I thought,
'man, this is easy; I wish we could do this all the time.' But when you've
got other cars two stacked to the outside of you, it gets interesting.

There was some wind out there, but I didn't really feel it. We had a little
bit more downforce than earlier. So the turns weren't an issue -- it was the
other cars.